Classic card of the week

Rob Maurer, 1991 Upper Deck

I don’t know anything about Rob Maurer, but dare I say he’s got a look in his eyes that reminds me of … I can’t even say it! Am I going crazy???!!!????!!!!????!!!!



Maurer is following in the footsteps of another hot-hitting first-baseman from Evansville, IN,

omg, omg, OMG!

the Yankees’ Don Mattingly.

Rob Maurer grew up in the same town, and played the same sport, and the same position within that sport, and made it to the same Major Leagues. Coincidence? More like the movie, “Single White Female,” if you ask me. Except it’s like, “Single White Female Part II: Married White Male: Footsteps to the Majors.” Wait, was Rob Maurer married? I don’t know. Probably. To Don Mattingly’s wife! What? This is crazy. I am scared. Is Mattingly okay? Has anyone heard from him lately? This reminds me of that movie, “The Talented Mr. Mattingly.”

“Don gave everybody in Evansville something to look up to,” Maurer said. “He gave everybody the idea they had a chance.”

“Follow Me Out Da ‘Hood” was the title of Don Mattingly’s 1991 rap album, and many did, including, obviously, Rob Maurer. For years, kids growing up in Evansville, Indiana would play stickball in the streets until the gunshots rang out, never believing they had a chance to play professional baseball like the kids from other American neighborhoods. But when Mattingly made it? Pfft. It was like, to use the timeless words of youth, “Dang, son! I can DO this.”

For a young child like Rob Maurer, who was born six years after Mattingly in the same room of the same hospital to the same
mother doctor, it was impossible to not be motivated by the success of his predecessor. But, as they say in the business (baseball), all that motivation is moot if you’re not exposing yourself to older men.

Maurer received plenty of exposure from scouts

Or, receiving exposure. That is nasty. Let’s move on.

Maurer was selected in the sixth round the same year, and his intense desire to excel sometimes led to frustration during his first two summers of professional baseball.

Intense desire almost always leads to frustration, whether in love or baseball, like that movie, “Love and Baseball,” starring Queen Latifa and Satchel Paige. Except, of course, in the case of Don Mattingly himself, whose intense desire to succeed led only to success, and also to back problems. ‘Tis much better, one might say, to curb that desire and just be like, “Whatev,” so that you may, as a result, attain that once desired success or, if doesn’t work out, not really care anyway.

Thus concludes today’s lesson.

Did you know?
Maurer's nickname, "Robbie Baseball," was deemed blasphemous by the 2002 MLB Collective Bargaining Agreement.